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Rating: 
Summary: A New Art Deserves A New Kind of Art Criticism-& This is It!
Review: This is the first book I have read about role-playing games that both suggests that role-playing games have had some kind of impact outside their own isolated world and, at the same time, cuts deeper into the historical and psychological origins of this peculiar, late-twentieth century phenomenon.Mackay breaks his book up into four sections. The first examines the history of the role-playing game, particularly in relation to other forms of popular culture: fiction, film, comic books, and computer games. The second section looks at the rules that structure role-playing game. The third section looks at the social relations between players within the performance of the game. The fourth section explores the aesthetics of the rpg and includes a fascinating history of the emergence of fantasy as the key to commercialism that it is today from its humble roots as an object of suspicion in orthodox Christian Medieval Europe. Mackay does not dumb-down his writing, and I'm sure other role-players, as well as others interested in the history of fantasy, will appreciate this. At times, he gets a bit carried away with his systems of organizing the game and describing it, but that is easily forgiven given the groundbreaking nature of this book. Of critical importance is his treatment of the performance of the role-playing game, and not simply as a game made up of a bunch of rulebooks and a bag of dice. The afterword by Marshall Blonsky is as astute and concise an analysis of fantasy gaming (whatever form it may take) as you'll find anywhere. My only question, why did it take so long for a book like this to hit the shelves?
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